h his assailant, he should strike a second through
misconception, how immeasurably ridiculous would be the action of these
individuals, should they, while the death struggle were still raging,
berate the man, one for breaking the law by taking away his cane, and
the other for breaking the law by the commission of a battery! Every man
feels instinctively that in such a crisis all weapons of defence are at
his disposal, and that he takes them, not in violation of law, but in
obedience to the law of extraordinary contingencies, which every
community adopts, but which no community can inscribe upon its statute
book, because it is the law of contingencies.

The Executive of this, as of every country, resorts to this law when, in
the nature of things, the statute law is inadequate. In doing this, he
does not violate law; he only adopts another kind of law. A subtle,
delicate law, indeed, which can neither be inscribed among the
enactments, nor exactly defined, circumscribed, or expressed. When i